Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) is a database containing details of all admissions, A and E attendances and outpatient appointments at NHS hospitals in England.

Initially this data is collected during a patient's time at hospital as part of the Commissioning Data Set (CDS). This is submitted to NHS Digital for processing and is returned to healthcare providers as the Secondary Uses Service (SUS) data set and includes information relating to payment for activity undertaken. It allows hospitals to be paid for the care they deliver.

This same data can also be processed and used for non-clinical purposes, such as research and planning health services. Because these uses are not to do with direct patient care, they are called 'secondary uses'. This is the HES data set.

HES data covers all NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in England, including:

• private patients treated in NHS hospitals
• patients resident outside of England
• care delivered by treatment centres (including those in the independent sector) funded by the NHS

Each HES record contains a wide range of information about an individual patient admitted to an NHS hospital, including:

• clinical information about diagnoses and operations
• patient information, such as age group, gender and ethnicity
• administrative information, such as dates and methods of admission and discharge
• geographical information such as where patients are treated and the area where they live

We apply a strict statistical disclosure control in accordance with the NHS Digital protocol, to all published HES data. This suppresses small numbers to stop people identifying themselves and others, to ensure that patient confidentiality is maintained.

Timescales for dissemination can be found under 'Our Service Levels' at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-access-request-service-dars-process

Coronavirus (COVID-19) has led to increased demand on general practices, including an increasing number of requests to provide patient data to inform planning and support vital research on the cause, effects, treatments and outcomes for patients of the virus. To support the response to the coronavirus outbreak, NHS Digital has been legally directed to collect and analyse healthcare information about patients, including from their GP record, for the duration of the coronavirus emergency period, under the COVID-19 Public Health Directions 2020 (COVID-19 Direction). All GP practices in England are legally required to share data with NHS Digital for this purpose under the Health and Social Care Act 2012. More information about this requirement is contained in the Data Provision Notice issued by NHS Digital to GP practices.

This collection will reduce burden on general practices, allowing them to focus on patient care and support the coronavirus response.

Timescales for dissemination of agreed data can be found under 'Our Service Levels' at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-access-request-service-dars-process

Providers of publicly-funded community services are legally mandated to collect and submit community health data, as set out by the Health and Social Care Act 2012. The Community Services Data Set (CSDS) expands the scope of the Children and Young People's Health Services Data Set (CYPHS) data set, by removing the 0-18 age restriction. The CSDS supersedes the CYPHS data set, to allow adult community data to be submitted. The structure and content of the CSDS remains the same as the CYPHS data set. The Community Information Data Set (CIDS) has been retired, to remove the need for a separate local collection and reduce burden on providers. Reports from the CSDS are available to download from the Community Services Data Set reports webpage

Timescales for dissemination can be found under 'Our Service Levels' at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-access-request-service-dars-process

COVID-19 UK Non-hospital Antigen Testing Results (Pillar 2) data is required by NHS Digital to support COVID-19 requests for linkage, analysis and dissemination to other organisations. These requests are often urgent and in support of direct care and service monitoring, planning and research. These are all functions that NHS Digital have been asked to deliver as a national resource in response to COVID-19, through the recent direction from the SoS.

Antigen test results relate to subjects who have had swab testing in the community at drive through test centres, walk in centres, home kits returned by posts, care homes, prisons etc.

The dataset is composed of:

• Patient identity and contact details

• Testing centre and laboratory details

• Test results • Test kit types (manufacturer)

The data cover the UK and is collected under SoS Covid Direction under s254 of the HSCA 2012 and s255 requests from devolved administrations for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. This is an expansion of the original scope which only included data for welsh patients tested in other parts of the UK.

Data is currently available for dissemination through the NHS Digital DARS service for England. If your extract is to include data from the devolved administrations their approval will also be required.

Timescales for dissemination can be found under 'Our Service Levels' at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-access-request-service-dars-process

Data forming the COVID-19 SARI-Watch data set relate to demographic, risk factor, treatment, and outcome information for patients admitted to hospital with a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis, as recorded in the PHE COVID-19 SARI-Watch Surveillance System.

SARI-Watch data are to be collected for the purposes of direct care, service monitoring, planning and research in response to the spread of COVID-19, including for the following purposes identified in the COVID-19 Directions (see below): •understanding information about patient access to health services and adult social care services as a direct or indirect result of COVID-19 and the availability and capacity of those services •monitoring and managing the response to COVID-19 by health and social care bodies and the Government, including providing information to the public about COVID-19 and its effectiveness, and information about capacity, medicines, equipment, supplies, services and the workforce within the health services and adult social care services •research and planning in relation to COVID-19, such as providing COVID-19 diagnosis.

Timescales for dissemination can be found under 'Our Service Levels' at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-access-request-service-dars-process Standard wording

NHS Digital will only disseminate SARI-Watch data collected from PHE where the information is linked to other information controlled by NHS Digital.

The Secondary Uses Service (SUS +) is a collection of healthcare data required by hospitals and used for planning health care, supporting payments, commissioning policy development and research.

The Secondary Uses Services Payment By Results data set is derived from SUS+ and includes key data in support of the national tariff system which is used to determine the reimbursement of NHS funded care in England.

Following the handover of responsibility for the NHS Payment system from DH to NHS England and NHS improvements (formerly Monitor) in April 2013, PbR was effectively replaced by the National Tariff Payment System (NTPS) in April 2014. This new payment system currently retains the vast majority of PbR policy. Due to the embedded terminology, data item and extract naming consistency, SUS continues to refer PbR in SUS and therefore the terms 'Payment by Results', 'PbR', 'National Tariff Payment System' and 'NTPS' should be considered interchangeable when using SUS or any SUS Guidance.

Payment by Results (PbR) provides a transparent, rules-based national tariff system, used to determine the reimbursement of NHS funded care in England. PbR rewards efficiency, supports patient choice and diversity and encourages activity for sustainable waiting time reductions. Payment is linked to activity and adjusted for casemix. This ensures a fair and consistent basis for hospital funding rather than being reliant principally on historic budgets and the negotiating skills of individual managers. PbR is the payment system in England under which commissioners pay providers of NHS-funded healthcare for each patient seen or treated, considering the complexity of the patient’s healthcare needs. The two fundamental features of PbR are nationally determined currencies and tariffs. Currencies are the unit of healthcare for which a payment is made and can take a number of forms covering different time periods from an outpatient attendance or a stay in hospital, to a year SUS+ PbR Reference Manual v4.64 Copyright © 2019 NHS Digital 5 of care for a long-term condition. Tariffs are the set prices paid for each currency.

PbR currently covers most of the acute healthcare in hospitals, with national tariffs for admitted patient care, outpatient attendances and accident and emergency. This activity is submitted using Commissioning Data Sets (CDS). Current policy intends that the scope of PbR and national tariff will expand in future by introducing currencies and tariffs for mental health, community and other services

Timescales for dissemination can be found under 'Our Service Levels' at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-access-request-service-dars-process

The Emergency Care Data Set (ECDS) is the national data set for urgent and emergency care. It replaced Accident & Emergency Commissioning Data Set (CDS type 010) and was implemented through: ECDS (CDS 6.2.2 Type 011). ECDS allows NHS Digital to provide information to support the care provided in emergency departments by including the data items needed to understand capacity and demand and help improve patient care.

ECDS Type 011 is better equipped to keep pace with the increasing complexity of delivering emergency care than its predecessor. This means that the improved quality of data collected in emergency departments provides better support to healthcare planning and better-informed decision making on improvements to services.

This improved data helps improve understanding of: The complexity and acuity of attending patients The causes of rising demand The value added by emergency departments.

ECDS also allows: The capture of better diagnostic data to ensure an enhanced understanding of need, activity and outcomes. Consistent monitoring of data across local and national initiatives support for injury surveillance, such that it will be possible to identify patterns that may be amenable to targeted interventions and improved public health. Which in turn informs more effective and efficient resource deployment.

Please note, data can be submitted to the ECDS on a daily basis, however data extracts are made available via the DARS process on the second Thursday of each month, comprising provisional data for the full financial year up to and including the penultimate full month prior to the publication date. For example: Data for events that occurred 01/04/2020 to 31/10/2020 is made available via DARS extract on 10/12/2020.

Timescales for dissemination of agreed data can be found under 'Our Service Levels' at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-access-request-service-dars-process

The National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service (NCRAS) at Public Health England supplies cancer registration data to NHS Digital. This data is available to be linked to other data held by NHS Digital in order to provide notifications on an individual's cancer status, be available to support research studies and to identify potential research participants for clinical trials.

NCRAS is the population-based cancer registry for England. It collects, quality assures and analyses data on all people living in England who are diagnosed with malignant and pre-malignant neoplasms, with national coverage since 1971.

The Cancer Registration dataset comprises England data to the present day, and Welsh data up to April 2017.

Timescales for dissemination of agreed data can be found under 'Our Service Levels' at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-access-request-service-dars-process Standard response

Includes: Patient demographics, Source Organisation, vaccination details and vaccine batch events. Its scope covers: Anyone vaccinated within England Anyone vaccinated in a Devoted Administration where this information is subsequently passed to England.

Settings include: hospital hubs - NHS providers vaccinating on site local vaccine services – community or primary care led services which could include primary care facilities, retail, community facilities, temporary structures or roving teams vaccination centres – large sites such as sports and conference venues set up for high volumes of people

Timescales for dissemination can be found under 'Our Service Levels' at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-access-request-service-dars-process

Data forming the Covid-19 Second Generation Surveillance Systems data set relate to demographic and diagnostic information from Pillar 1 swab testing in PHE labs and NHS hospitals for those with a clinical need, and health and care workers and Pillar 2 Swab testing in the community at drive through test centres, walk in centres, home kits returned by posts, care homes, prisons etc).

Timescales for dissemination can be found under 'Our Service Levels' at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-access-request-service-dars-process

The Covid-19 UK Non-hospital Antibody Testing Results (Pillar 3) dataset, also referred to as iElisa, documents individuals that have undergone a finger prick test for antibodies from having had Covid-19. The dataset is UK wide and contains positive, negative and void results. It also contains demographic data. Data available is in relation to specified cohorts which differ across geography and time. Data does not include the NHS Antibody tests as NHS Digital does not hold this data.

Data is currently available for dissemination through the NHS Digital DARS service for England. If your extract is to include data from the devolved administrations their approval will also be required.

Timescales for dissemination can be found under 'Our Service Levels' at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-access-request-service-dars-process

Includes: Patient demographics, Source Organisation, Adverse reaction details. Its scope covers: Anyone vaccinated within England and anyone vaccinated in a Devoted Administration where this information is subsequently passed to England.

Settings include hospital hubs - NHS providers vaccinating on site local vaccine services – community or primary care led services which could include primary care facilities, retail, community facilities, temporary structures or roving teams vaccination centres – large sites such as sports and conference venues set up for high volumes of people

Timescales for dissemination can be found under 'Our Service Levels' at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-access-request-service-dars-process

Since July 2020 NHS Digital has established a collection of data from electronic and paper prescriptions submitted to the NHSBSA for reimbursement each month.

The data comprises prescriptions for medicines that are dispensed or supplied by community pharmacists, appliance contractors and dispensing doctors in England.

The data also includes:

prescriptions submitted by prescribing doctors, for medicines personally administered in England prescriptions written in England and dispensed outside of England prescriptions written in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey but dispensed in England

Data includes prescriptions issued by prescribers in:

general practice community clinics hospital clinics dentists community nursing services.

There are around 90 to 100 million rows of patient-level data in this collection per month. Each row represents each medicine or appliance on a prescription and includes personal data (for example NHS number) and special category data (data concerning health).

Timescales for dissemination of agreed data can be found under 'Our Service Levels' at the following link: https://digital.nhs.uk/services/data-access-request-service-dars/data-access-request-service-dars-process Standard response